Gravity Payments Review

Overall Rating

Category Breakdown

Overview

Gravity Payments (gravitypayments.com) is a small merchant account provider based in Seattle, Washington. The company was founded in 2004. According to a representative of Gravity Payments, the company primarily uses First Data and Cynergy Data as its processors but services the accounts directly. Gravity Payments markets its services nationally, but most of its customers are in the state of Washington. Gravity Payments is a registered ISO/MSP for BMO Harris, N.A., Chicago, Illinois, and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Walnut Creek, and is located at 1455 NW Leary Way, Suite 200, Seattle, Washington 98107. Dan Price is the CEO of Gravity Payments.

Sales & Marketing

Key Points - Sales & Marketing

Employs Independent Resellers

No

Advertises Deceptive Rates

No

Discloses All Important Terms

No

Gravity Payments appears to hire W2-employed inside and outside sales agents to market its services, although it is possible that the company also employs independent sales reps in some cases. We are currently unable to locate any Gravity Payments merchant complaints that accuse the company’s agents of unethical conduct, but we have found one complaint from a former employee who felt that she did not receive adequate support from her employers. However, this complaint appears to be an isolated instance. It also appears that the company actively markets Interchange Pass-through rate pricing to all of its merchants, which is the most transparent pricing model available. As an additional point in its favor, the company does not appear to engage in deceptive advertising strategies in its official materials.

Phillip’s Top E-Commerce Picks

Costs & Contract

Key Points - Costs & Contract

Swiped Rate

Variable

Keyed-in Rate

Variable

Early Termination Fee

Variable

PCI Compliance Fee

$85 Per Year

Equipment Lease Terms

Variable

According to a company representative, Gravity Payments sets contract length and cancellation fees on a case-by-case basis. We have located one sample contract provided by the company (available here and below) that outlines a three-year agreement through First Data with an early termination fee of $495. This agreement also includes a minimum monthly fee of $35 and flat rate pricing of 4%, and the Gravity Payments website mentions a PCI Compliance program that costs $85 annually. Overall, these contract terms are more expensive than industry averages, but it may be that the merchant in question could not qualify for more competitive terms. At this time, we will take the company’s representative at his word and assume that Gravity Payments offers contract terms that can range from very competitive to very costly depending on a merchant’s business type, size, and time in business. The few available complaints about the company’s contract terms express frustration with its early termination fee. See the Gravity Payments First Data Program Guide.

Complaints & Service

Key Points - Complaints & Service

Total Online Complaints

<10

Live Customer Support

Yes

Most Common Complaint

N/A

We are currently able to locate a handful of negative Gravity Payments reviews, none of which accuse the company of being a scam or a ripoff. Most complainants report fund holds, difficulty cancelling service, frustration with the early termination fee, misleading advertising, or poor employee support. Two of these complaints received identical responses from a company representative within minutes of each other, and it is unknown whether the merchants’ complaints were resolved. The complaints related to fund holds suggest that merchants who expect sudden, large jumps in revenues or who operate in high-risk sectors should avoid Gravity. In general, though, the low complaint volume and lack of a consistent theme lead us to believe that most Gravity Payments clients are satisfied with the service they receive. According to a company representative, Gravity services customer accounts directly rather than outsourcing support to its processors. In keeping with this approach, the company offers a dedicated phone number and email address on its website.

BBB

Key Points - BBB

Product & Service Complaints

0

Billing & Collection Complaints

2

Advertising & Sales Complaints

0

Guarantee & Warranty Complaints

0

Delivery Complaints

0

As of this review, the Better Business Bureau is reporting accreditation since 2005 and an “A” rating for Gravity Payments with two complaints filed in the last 36 months. Both of the complaints are related to billing and collection disputes and were either resolved to the dissatisfaction of the merchant or did not receive a final response from the merchant. Given the company’s low complaint volume and resolution ratio, we agree with the BBB’s rating at this time.

Gravity Payments Bottom Line

Gravity Payments rates as a reliable merchant services provider according to our rating standards. The company is showing very few complaints across all consumer protection sites and appears to offer a wide range of contract terms. Merchants are encouraged to read their contracts carefully and check their application against their program guide to ensure they understand the fees they will pay.

About Phillip Parker

Hi, I’m Phillip and I’m disgusted by the state of credit card processing in the U.S. and abroad. I believe that the industry has been overrun by people who engage in fraud and deception in order to steal money from hard working business owners. I’ve made it my mission to expose the companies and individuals who engage in predatory marketing, pricing, and contracts, or just provide terrible service. Along with uncovering the bad guys, I’ve also discovered the good guys who do stand out from the status quo. CPO is a website where you will find ratings and reviews of these companies along with advice on how to save money and which service providers consider. Together we can move the industry in a positive direction. If you would like to help support my work, please checkout “Fee Sweep” my eGuide to getting the lowest possible fees when accepting card payments. If you haven’t heard of “interchange” this advice will save you hundreds, even thousands, in processing fees.

Phillip’s Merchant Account Rate and Fee Savings Guide

Copyright & Disclaimer

Any unauthorized copying and reproduction of the content of this page, including all meta data and computer code, is strictly prohibited. While the information in the above article is believed to be accurate as of its publish date, the author and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents. The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable to any party for any direct, indirect, punitive, special, incidental or other consequential damages arising directly or indirectly from any use of this material, which is provided “as is,” and without warranties. Any and all use of trade names and/or marks are for identification purposes only and shall not be construed as a claim of affiliation, or otherwise, with CardPaymentOptions.com, Inc. ("CPO") in any form. The sole purpose of the material presented herein is to alert, educate, and inform readers. It is not intended as legal or financial advice.

8 ReviewsLeave Your Review Below

They do not approve of everyone, and they make up as they go along who is high risk and who is not, according to what they ‘think’ and now in what they know. They do not ask what the risk with ones business is, rather they dictate. What they do is illegal in many states, to discriminate and say one business is more worthy than another.

I founded my own e-commerce business and have now grown it to a business with a revenue rate of seven figure plus. After dealing with Gravity Payments earlier this year, I discovered them to be a highly unreliable partner in scaling and growing my business. I would advise any business with high growth potential to look elsewhere and avoid the agonizing experience I endured with Gravity.

We opened the account in May and initially forecasted to process a certain amount. After a few weeks, we implemented a marketing campaign that proved to be extremely successful. We gave our helpful account representative a heads up that we were definitely going to surpass our processing amount exponentially. She congratulated me and told me she would speak to the Risk Department so our processing would continue smoothly. We continued to use Gravity over the week. The following week, we were abruptly told that due to our over-processing, our funds would be held. We got a portion of our funds but a large majority of it remained held.

In e-commerce, cash flow is key to the purchasing and selling of merchandise. This period of held funds nearly killed our business, especially at a point in which we were experiencing the absolute peak in our growth rate. We had to appease vendors who gave us credit to support our growth, push out pay cheques to our own employees, etc. I tried several times to reach out to our account representative and the Risk department but they shut me down, citing the possibility of chargebacks or our business going out under. I even tried reaching out to Dan, the founder of Gravity, explaining my situation. While he noted my reply, there was no proactive response.

We understand Gravity’s position and the financial risk of being over processing a business. However, we provided all our corporate documents, illustrated the risk prevention systems we use (Signifyd), offered to open up our e-commerce platform so they could see all our sales, and more. We felt we were being extremely flexible but we weren’t being met with a fair chance. Gravity owns the unique ability to manage their own risk (other processors usually have to abide by the underlying processing bank’s risk team). Regardless, they weren’t able to help us which really surprised us given we had such high potential given the numbers we were pulling at that time.

This is entirely my unbiased opinion as I do not want the same experience I had to pass on to other fellow business owners. When you’re growing your business, you should be celebrating and seeking to expand the empire- not spending time pulling hair out while nervously wondering what your credit card processing company will be doing. Due to a single credit card processor, I felt that I had lost control of my own business. I am currently using another widely used processor and my experience with them has been excellent. They have been extremely supportive of my growth.

At this time, our funds are still held and we have not experienced ONE chargeback since that time. We’ve requested this to them several times. We still haven’t seen our funds back.

We have had a gravity payment account for almost 2 years during this time we have used eBay to establish a customer base on our direct order website. We have finally hit the point where most of our pre-sales where being processed through the website recently. Gravity has decided now is a good time to accuse us of being a scam and is currently holding 6K in payments that are needed to pay for the product ordered by our customers so we can ship out on the release date.

They are requesting bank statements be sent over email, I can not think of a worse idea than asking for sensitive bank information over email.

This is nothing more than a poor excuse to sit on a huge chunk of capitol.

I’m a former employee of Gravity Payments, not a merchant, and I truly commend this young organization for their strong drive to change the image of merchant service providers. My only recommendation is that they learn to value ALL of their new employees as I did with them as a company.

To whomever is reading this, please give your new employees a chance to work on changing their style and don’t throw them under the bus after two days. After all, your sales manager extended me the job offer because they believed in me. When a new hire mentions that they’ve reached their peak at the end of their second day, following192 knocks, believe them. Especially when they’ve already told you that they’re feeling ineffective and flat after those knocks. Unless a critical breach of policy occurs, you really should give a new employee more than two days on the street to perform at their optimum level. In fact, I was told that it typically takes four months for a new person to get their game on. So much for “Team Barbara”.

Dan Price, you are the absolute best. I wish you continued success with your growing enterprise and with all of your personal endeavors. Thanks for your true classiness and intelligence Dan. :)

What do you mean plenty of money? Where is the proof of this? Credit card processing is a service. They guarantee that someone NOT GIVING YOU CASH can be trusted. I agree Gravity Payments is not a very honest company. They claim on their web-site they charge “Half the industry standard”. What a joke. I had these guys come in from Transparent Processing & knocked $120.00 a month off our bill. Our rep at gravity never returned our calls. It was a constant chasing game.

If you sold your business how could they keep charging your account? I’m sure if you send a notarized letter to the owner & then follow up with a call to make sure your account is cancelled you will be just fine.

Hello, Cindy. Thank you for your feedback. I am very sorry to hear that you had a poor experience with Gravity Payments. I wanted to touch base with you to see if there was anything that we could do to help change your opinion of our company. We pride ourselves on the positive relationships we have with our merchants, so feedback like this is something I take very seriously. I’d like to know what your bad experience was and see if there is anything we can do to rectify that.

I worked with this company long enough to not be charged an early termination fee. I sold my business several months ago and while I had some charges due to problems with discontinuing the service, I sold the business due to the poor economy, it’s not like I was switching to another company. I paid the fees they charged. However, I am very concerned that I continue to be charged merchant services for something I no longer use or own. I called to inquire about these charges and was told that the charges may be fees for early termination fee. What exactly constitutes early termination in terms of length of service? This is poor business practice on in my mind. The company made plenty of money on me and could at least credit me a measly $40.00 since they aren’t sure what the charges were for.

Hello, Mr. Page. Thank you for your feedback. I am very sorry to hear that you had a poor experience with Gravity Payments. I wanted to touch base with you to see if there was anything that we could do to help change your opinion of our company. We pride ourselves on the positive relationships we have with our merchants, so feedback like this is something I take very seriously. I’d like to know what your bad experience was and see if there is anything I can do to rectify that.

Provider of the Month

Why Fattmerchant: This provider has one of the most competitive pricing plans of any merchant account provider in the card processing industry. Fattmerchant also offers a month-to-month service agreement, no cancellation fees, no hidden fees, and processing options for virtually any business need. Add to all of this easy-to-use technology and top-rated customer support, and you can’t go wrong with this choice.

Exposing The Truth

Hi, I’m Phillip and I’m disgusted by the state of credit card processing industry. I believe that it has been overrun by people who engage in fraud and deception in order to steal from hard working business owners. I’ve made it my mission to expose the companies and individuals who engage in predatory marketing, pricing, and contracts. You shouldn’t have to worry about paying inflated fees or getting trapped in expensive contracts when you are simply trying to take payments from your customers.

Phillip Parker Founder & Critic

P.S. If you would like to help support my work, please checkout “Fee Sweep” my eGuide to getting the lowest possible fees when accepting card payments. If you haven’t heard of “interchange” this advice will save you hundreds, even thousands, in fees.